Prep Baseball: Dakota pitcher Tayler Burns on run of strikeouts

Tayler Burns considers himself a control pitcher. “It’s not like I blow my fastball by anybody,” he said. “I pitch to contact. And I try to pitch fast so my defense is awake, too. I’m not one of those pitchers who messes around with base runners.”

“It’s not like I blow my fastball by anybody,” he said. “I pitch to contact. And I try to pitch fast so my defense is awake, too. I’m not one of those pitchers who messes around with base runners.”

What base runners?

The Dakota senior right-hander may average only 75 mph with his fastball, but he has 22 strikeouts in his first 11 innings this year. That’s 22 strikeouts vs. only three hits. Burns had a season-opening no-hitter and a three-hitter in his two starts, both 10-run, shutout conference wins for Dakota.

Burns says he succeeds with “an off-balance kind of thing.”

Coach Britton Kauffman said he is only mildly surprised by Burns’ big strikeout numbers.

“He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but he’s just so intelligent,” Kauffman said. “His baseball IQ is high. He knows where to put pitches. He knows how to set hitters up. He’s also extremely efficient.

“In nine of those 11 innings, he’s been under 12 pitches. That pitch count is ridiculous. With these rainouts, it’s especially important. We’re going to need him. He can pitch Monday and be ready to go again Thursday because he doesn’t waste pitches. He knows when to pitch and where to pitch.”

He also knows what to pitch.

Burns has a wider assortment than most pitchers, throwing a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, circle change-up and a cut fastball.

“If I’m not feeling confident enough with a pitch, I go back to my top three pitches: fastball, curve and knuckleball,” Burns said. “Occasionally, I will throw a change or a cutter to see how that works, but if I don’t like it, I go back to my three main pitches.”

Burns and Brandon Lizer throw knuckleballs as de facto change-ups for Dakota, throwing the pitch 10 to 12 times a game.

“They can throw it the first pitch and they can also throw it the last pitch,” Kauffman said. “That’s what makes it really effective. They get the batter thinking curveball and the next thing you know they are swatting at a ball that’s bouncing all over the place.”

“I like to keep the hitters off-balance,” Burns said. “When they see fastball, curveball, that keeps them off-balance as it is. When I throw in another wrinkle with a knuckleball, that’s another thing in their mind. When I keep mixing it up, it makes it hard for them too guess.”

Dakota (3-4, 3-0 NUIC East) has won all three of its conference games by shutout behind Burns and Lizer, who threw a two-hitter. But those games have all been against teams expected to finish in the bottom half of the NUIC East. And Burns’ opening no-hitter came against an Ashton-Franklin Center team missing three starters.

Page 2 of 2 - “We understand that we haven’t knocked off the state champions,” Kauffman said. “But we’ve only had three no-hitters since I’ve been here; we’ve got to celebrate that.”

But Dakota won’t win its eighth NUIC title in nine years without more runs.

“We’ve got to hit better,” Kauffman said. “We cannot rely on Tayler and Lizer to strike out 10 every game, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”

Probably not. But it’s sure working so far. Especially with a pitcher who pitches to contact AND strikes out two batters an inning.